Unlikely birds of a feather

Magic and Larry should be the story, not Moss

Minnesota Vikings receiver Randy Moss gave new meaning to the term "playing in traffic" last week, and it got our attention, as it should have. It's not every day that a pro athlete shows such amazingly poor judgement, incredible arrogance and total lack of respect for the rules the rest of us live by. Well, actually it is just about every day that an athlete shows those things, but that's a Hot Button for another time. The point is that it's dangerously easy to let depressing stories like Moss' dominate our sports consciousness so completely that we forget to notice the good stuff.

Last week, for instance, much of the press and public's attention was focused on Moss, the cavalier jailbird, who spent a night in the slammer after being charged with two misdemeanors for allegedly pushing a female traffic control agent half a block with his slowly moving Lexus. We wrestled with all sorts of questions in the aftermath: Did the marijuana residue found in the car belong to him? Should the Vikings or the NFL suspend him? How could he walk out of jail whistling as though he'd just spent the night at the Marriott? What, exactly, is a traffic control agent?

Meanwhile, two men who deserved notice for much more positive reasons went largely overlooked. Magic Johnson entered the Basketball Hall of Fame last week, and he chose his good friend and greatest foe, Larry Bird, to introduce him. Unless you live in New England or southern California, that little item was probably just a blip on your radar, but it should have been much more, because the relationship between Magic and Bird was and still is an example of the best that sports has to offer. They began as adversaries on that March night in1979 when Johnson's Michigan State team beat Bird's Indiana State squad for the national title, then took their rivalry to the NBA, where it seemed Magic and the Lakers met Bird and the Celtics in the Finals every year.

The level of their performances and the intensity of their competition made the Magic-Bird rivalry rare, but the way their battles brought about a mutual respect that grew into affection makes it unique and uplifting. They became such good friends that it's easy to believe Magic's vision of them one day sitting on the porch as elderly men, competing tooth-and-nail over a game of checkers. It would be too corny for fiction -- two great players, one black, one white, discover that they have more in common than they have differences, that they are both just a couple of hard-working guys from the midwest who love nothing more than basketball, played well.

Consider the other great individual rivalries in sports, like Chamberlain-Russell or Connors-McEnroe. None of them ever engendered the kind of friendship that Bird and Magic share. If you're looking for a way to teach your kids about sportsmanship, about how it's possible to give every last ounce of effort against an opponent and still embrace him as a friend afterward, you need look no further than Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.

So maybe we had it all backward last week. Maybe that Hall of Fame moment should have drawn the lion's share of attention and Randy Moss should have been the afterthought. After all, we may never again see a pair of rivals quite like Magic and Bird. Guys like Moss, sadly, we see all the time.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button issue every Monday on CNNSI.com.

 

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